


Cold Case

by jasmynation



Series: Vividtale [5]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: AH - Freeform, Argyle, FellSci Asgore is also mentioned, Gen, His name is Argyle, Sad boi, Spice is not okay, Spud - Freeform, Trip - Freeform, a one shot i never intended to write, and Trip is mentioned, dark themes, even before spud like what, for a side character that wasn't supposed to be that well cared about, he is here at the end, he is like the least okay and the hardest to please of vividtale, here i am tho, i have a weird method of naming characters, kind of, oh yeah, where in i will usually forget everthing about how they came to be, writing his origin as well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:00:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26136910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasmynation/pseuds/jasmynation
Summary: READ "FEEDING THE CURIOUS" BEFORE THIS OR YOU WILL PROBABLY BE LOST.This is essentially Spice's Origin story and all the bits of his story that add context to his part in "Feeding the Curious".TRIGGER WARNING: this has sensitive topics, so if you are easily triggered by dark themes related to mental health be aware.
Series: Vividtale [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1710466
Kudos: 2





	Cold Case

The Vividtale multiverse grew in bursts after the birth of OuterLust and XSwap, home to Spud and Rues. All worlds were surprisingly peaceful and often even on the surface with monsters and humans living together. It wasn’t perfect, nothing is, the drama is an unavoidable part of the nature of social creatures, but in general, Vividtale was filled with positive worlds.

For some creations, this was a more challenging aspect to form than others. After all, some of the AU’s whose code was being copied, fused, and rearranged into this new multiverse, were much darker or negative worlds. Despite this, whoever was putting things together was determined to give everyone a chance at a positive world and a happy life.

Though, even they had no power to stop the tragedy that befell some upon Rusty’s massacre.

Shortly prior to the incident that followed the world of FellSci, one monster was particularly set on how wrong it felt for his world to be the way it was; Spice.

•••

 _White? No, I can’t see. What is this?_ The small skeleton dropped off his bed to the cold floor. “Fuck!” He groaned, slowly pushing himself up and running his forehead. “Where the hell am I?”

Spice looked around the room. It was his room, he knew this. “How” was the frustrating question. He stood up, as his mind woke more, filling with more vague knowledge of things that he knew **he** never learned. This was the first moment of his existence. The more things he ‘remembered’ the more frustrated he became.

The small skeleton refused to simply sit and stew, so he wandered out of his room down the hall and froze when he passed the door to another room. Something screamed at him, hoping it was empty. He reached to turn the knob and walk in.

A desk with a computer sat in the corner across from him, a table with action figures in the corner over to the left beside a bookshelf with an odd collection, and a race car bed beside him in another corner. He felt his soul drop, an uncontrollable shake in his free hand while the other gripped the knob tight.

 _But why?_ He found no answers in the foggy knowledge he retained. _Someone is supposed to be here with me… I really hope they aren’t?_

Spice raised his hand to his forehead and fell back out of the room, his mind spinning, and twister. He may have blacked out, but when he came too the door was closed and he was sitting on the floor at the top of the staircase. The first mental note he makes is not to go into that room again if he can help it, nothing good could come of it.

The monster pushed through the faint dizzy spell and carefully scooted himself down the stairs. He only stood up at the bottom, then scanning the room around him. It all felt just a bit off. Like someone moved everything an inch to the left so he’d run into things. A bad prank. That’s all. That would be a simple answer. Regardless, it made him feel sick being here, so he hurried to the next closed door, lucky that it was the exit to a winter wonderland outside.

He was sure to carefully step into the snow, not entirely certain of its safety, before wandering out to scan the area.

“Spice!” Someone was calling him. Did he know this voice? “Over here!” _Someone I heard a lot of._ He turned to the voice to see a shivering fish lady in an armored coat that made him think of something he once saw in a book about humans- correction; whatever memory that was can’t really be his… _Amnesia?_

“Poseidyn?” Spice called her, as the taller monster hurried over to him.

“Good, then ya know me already! We need you at the lab.” She sat her hands on her hips and grinned as him like they’d known each other for years.

“Right.” He was drawn to following her off, but that didn’t stop his questions. “How do I know you?”

“Don’t know.” She shrugged, with little care, leading them up a trail to a river wear someone had a boat of some kind waiting for them.

“How do you know me?”

“Not sure. Just do.”

“And you just… Accept that?”

“Opposed to what?” She glares back at him. “We don’t got time to question everything when there is something we got to handle first.” Poseidyn steps into the boat, not bothering to wait for Spice she picks the skeleton up without sweat and plops him down in front of her in the boat.

“Hey!” He growls and squirmed to no avail, stepping away into the boat person to get distance from the fish monster.

“Oh, shut it, you’re puny and slow and asking too many questions already. Just sit down.” She crossed her arms and sat down.

“Why am I not surprised that this is my welcome greeting?” He huffed and sat himself down, ignoring the grumbles from the equally annoyed Riverperson he bumped into.

“Ain’t no use in wondering all that now. This place has a big heaping machine keeping it running and ain’t no one but you knows how to make sure the damn thing’s working right.”

“The core?” _How do I know what that is?_

“Oh thank fuck you know what it’s called!” She sighed in relief. “That’s the best sign we’ve anyone woke up.”

“Did everyone just… wake up?”

“Seems like it, so far. Know how this core thing works?”

“Yeah but… there was someone…” He pressed his hand to his head as he tried to recall something deeper than the other ‘memories’ he had.

“Good. We can deal with your ‘someone’ later, right now we got you. Just, make sure the hunk of metal ain’t gonna blow us to bits so we can sort out everything else.”

“Okay.” _Fair enough. Can’t get answers if you’re dead._

When Spice and Poseidyn reached the labs, joined by two guards who made sure Poseidyn was hydrated in the Hot Lands, they met with a quiet yellow monster a bit smaller than Spice.

“Seidyn, I said bring him to the city if you find him.” She spoke softly like a warning, but one could see through the mask through her eyes, she was scared.

“I know Atlas, but I had to make sure this was who you meant,” Poseidyn spoke much kinder to the smallest monster than she had to Spice. “And you said you might find the blueprints.”

“Might. I would have texted you…” Atlas sighed and scratched the back of her neck, avoiding the gaze of her guests. “It’s fine. Just hurry through the city to where it is.”

“The Core.” Spice pitched in, glaring down Atlas like he could look straight through her.

“R-right.” Atlas shrunk back a bit. “I suppose then you know what to check?”

“I think I’ve got it.”

“Then come back here. I’m pretty sure this place is yours.” Atlas gestures to the lab.

“Are we so sure about that?” He looked around, recognizing some things and other things slipping his mind completely. “It’s kind of far from home.”

“Only the head scientist knows how the core works, most of us work here but you run it. Remember?”

“Is that the term we’re using?” He frowned at Atlas as they seemed to be talking to him like this is all completely normal.

“What else would you call it?”

“Twenty-one questions can wait when we know we aren’t going to blow up, now go!” Poseidyn pushed Spice along towards the exit to his dismay, and off to the core he went.

•••

The facility was working perfectly, everything remained in check, not a scratch out of place, just the expected messiness of every place in this world. ‘FellSci’ was the name they all deemed appropriate for all the areas they could travel throughout the underground. After a quick meeting held by the King and Queen, all monsters came to an agreement that this was just how life started and went about their lives as they felt was natural.

Except, of course, the Head Scientist Dr. Spice.

•••

“I’m telling you Atlas, I didn’t make these, I don’t know what they do!” Spice yelled at his assistant, as he gestured to a whole table of inventions.

“Sir, King Argyle swore a skeleton was his lead scientist. And you are the only one in the Kingdom-”

“Ah-fucking hell Atlas, those self-acclaimed ‘royals’ don’t know shit!” He threw his hands in the air with a groan.

“Dr. Spice! If anyone hears you speaking ill of them-”

“They can kiss my ass, I think I know what I built, and I haven’t built a damn thing before, because I didn’t _exist_ before.”

“We debunked that theory, it doesn’t follow through with how we have memories.”

“Yesterday is memories. I _remember_ you idiots throwing that theory to the wind. That shit you call ‘memories’ ain’t the same. It’s too… vague.” He crossed his arms and stared at a bunch of writing and equations on a chalkboard.

“That theory is vague.” Atlas sighed, and when she noticed the skeleton had decided to return to ignoring her she frowned. “I’m trying here. This isn’t easy for anyone you know? And you’re only making it more challenging to move forward…”

“You all believe this place is mind right?”

“It is, sir.”

“Then get out.”

“E-excuse me?”

“You heard me.” He glared back, both eyes glowing a bright red. “All of you. Get. Out.”

“But-”

“OUT!” He yelled, summoning some kind of skull blaster and aiming the bright red beam of energy from the creature’s mouth at the one claiming to be his lab assistant.

Atlas scurried away, and as soon as she got everyone out of the building, encouraged by the sight of a pissed Spice behind her, he shut the doors and securely locked himself away in the basement with other odd experiments. Whatever to Almalgamations were, he couldn’t care in his moment of frustration, he took his rage out on the beasts and cleared the level of all the goopy messes.

After cooling down, he set himself up in a section of the lab’s basement, where no one could get to him and all the machines that were supposedly his, before the experimenting began.

He tried coffee, the bitter taste was awful, and he dumped the thing out after he threw it up. Instead, he found himself a collection of various food items high in sugar and used that to stay awake for testing each machine until he crashes, repeating the cycle, again and again, clearly driving himself mad. He tossed his phone across the room at the 100th call from King Argyle. He pushed himself to drink coffee when it was all he had left, a stupidly endless supply too, but it only made him hate himself more.

 _I could just stop. Stop thinking so much. Stop running in circles with that stupid theory, trying to figure out how these ‘memories’ clash so much, how I have them, how it all works… I could go home._ He looked up from his papers over at the next machine he planned to run some tests with. _Couldn’t I just stop? I’m not getting anywhere… maybe if I weren’t alone… and tired… and I just stopped thinking… does everything really have to make sense?_ He thought as he fiddled with the buttons on the machine. _No, I don’t think I can let this go at this point._ What he could only describe a hole in his wall opened up from a blast of the machine, now a window to another skeleton dressed in the brightest colours he ever saw, sitting on a rock by some water above ground and staring right back at him.

“Uh, heya?” The colourful skeleton smiled, scooting himself closer to the opening in the lab wall.

“It shouldn’t have…” Spice was at a loss, pulling at the tight collar of his coat around his neck. _I haven’t gotten anything else to work, why this one?_

“Whatcha’ doin’ here bud?” When the stranger reached to touch the window, the scientist snapped back to action, quickly reaching for the buttons again to try and shut the machine off, but by the time he did, it was too late at the skeleton came flying out of the hole right on him, bringing him to the ground.

“SHIT!”

••• _Feeding The Curious: A Taste of Joy & A Taste Spice_ •••

Spice awoke on his table with a searing pain in his chest and head. He couldn’t remember, even in those vague, foggy memories, feeling pain like this. He rolled over on his side, only to roll a bit too much and fall on the floor again. No wonder his glasses had cracks, how they didn’t break was beyond him. He attempted to push himself up through the pain, but his bones refused to move again. Then darkness overcame him again like before.

_Where is Trip?_

He awoke in pain and blacked backed out countless times before he could move or even think again.

The weakened skeleton pulled himself over to a counter, so he could push himself up and lean against it. Taking a very unnecessary sharp breath when the movement filled him with only more searing pain. He managed to stay conscious this time, though he wasn’t exactly thankful. From this position, it was easier to examine himself and his whereabouts.

He was uninjured, only his clothes had some tears here and there where some wounds may have been, and he was in his lab.

 _Was it all a nightmare?_ The pain said otherwise. He carefully slid a hand under his ribs to feel for any fractures inside he couldn’t see, but nothing could be felt. _What the fuck?_ He recalled how to check his stats and pulled his soul out.

The site made him freeze, staring at the stinging magic floating above his hand, half drained.

_Did Trip’s healing do this? Or was it that asshole?_

He carefully reached to touch the thing, hoping to calm it down, but it only stung worse.

“Fuck.” Spice winced at his own touch, tears uncontrollably developing in his eyes as he clenched his teeth.

_Food. I need to get food._

All that was in this lab was coffee, but it should do. After a dozen attempts, he managed to prepare himself a pot of coffee in the machine and now he just had to wait. On the floor. Holding his broken soul and thinking over the events that have occurred in his short existence.

_They’re all dead._

_I should be dead._

_I’m not dead._

_This isn’t right at all._

He passes out again against the counter boards, waking up and giving in to just drinking the coffee cold. It tasted even worse. Yet, his body didn’t feel as in pain as before, even though his soul remained in the odd state it was in.

The skeleton could get up on his feet with the help of coffee, and the awful taste feed into his craving for feeling more like shit as he felt he deserve to. After all, he should have been with them. He should have died with them. Or protected them in here for what it may have been worth.

He dragged himself over to his chair and stared at the machines.

 _Worthless garbage._ Spice glared daggers at the machine that brought Trip here. He raised started to raise a hand at the thing but pain shot up his arm and he winced again. After chugging another coffee, he rested his head on the table, and despite impossible odds, fell asleep again.

•••

When he woke again, the pain in his soul was faint but ever-present. It remains half-drained no matter what he ate or felt. In fact, the stronger the emotions he felt, the more the sting returned, leaving a worse taste in his mouth than any bitter drink could.

As a focused monster of science, he was never the biggest fan of anything he couldn’t explain with research and testing, most emotions were on that list of difficult things to explain the function of scientifically. This meant he was never the most self-aware of feelings, let alone his own, and here he was now reminded any moment he felt anything strongly. It was pissing him off, which made things worse.

The soul was also on that list; not that magic itself wasn’t an element of his own scientific knowledge, but the soul was not quite simply a ball of magic. This was a complex part of a monster that could take a physical form, but was it the entire essence of a monster? Something told him one could live without a soul, which would mean there was more to a monster than their soul. Perhaps a soul is a part of the whole. The body, the mind, and the soul. One could go completely comatose, and even brain dead, but the body could be kept alive for a sometime after. One could lose a limb, but remain entirely intact in their mind.

•••

_What does it mean to lose half a soul?_

The small skeleton tapped the back of a mechanical pencil on the paper as he sat at his desk with notes spread everywhere, trying to figure out what his situation meant and the events that lead up to it.

 _It’s not hard to believe the intruder was someone from outside of FellSci,_ he reiterated to himself, _considering where Trip came from, but I’d been awake for two days before then, I would have seen him come through that machine. So he must have his own way of traveling, which is equalling as possible._

Spice tried to remember what the murderer had done to him, but the entire event was a blur beyond a heavy, draining feeling. He went over his notes for the fifth time and nothing felt anymore clear.

_Why? Was it because they were weak? No, he didn’t seem pleased or annoyed or… he seemed desperate maybe? For what? Why here? Why then?_

His mind was pounding on his skull, he was ready to drown in coffee.

Coffee was all he deserved.

•••

Spice shredded notes up, tossing them in the trash in a fit, tears streaming down his face as his bones throbbed with the pain his soul echoed out.

“FUCK THIS!” He screamed, tossing smaller things on the ground or throwing them at bigger machines. Not that the lab was exactly clean before but by the end of his fit the only thing in site completely undamaged appeared to be the coffee machine and the portal invention.

The small aggravated skeleton glared at the damned invention he knew he hadn’t build raised his hands to smash it but instead broke down, softly hitting it while he leaned his skull against it crying until he fell to the ground.

•••

Another night on the floor.

Another puddle of tears.

Another stupid mistake.

_What is the point of this? Waking up here knowing all these things, these other lives, just to be slaughtered off? For what? Some sick amusement? Was it a mistake? On purpose? What was the point?_

_Why am I still here?_

He hugged his legs to his chest, curled up in the corner, questioning his existence.

•••

A pair of broken glasses sat delicately on the table by a plain white mug, with the word ‘NO’ on it, half-full of a bitter liquid. Spice sat with his head in his hands, tears running down his cheekbones once again, letting out quiet sobs while he beats himself up internally for not being better to those around him while he could be.

Shortly after, he brings the mug to his sink, slowly emptying the mug and watching the liquid slide down the drain, never to see the light again.

He carefully places the mug in the sink, grips the edge of the counter, and bows his head as he stares down into the drain.

It wasn’t always so quiet in the lab. Even in the few days, he had of real memories, there was always Atlas before he kicked her out. The clinking sounds of metal against metal, or machines turning on and off, or someone dropping something on their foot and cursing out.

He looks over one of the drawers to his left.

Then it was quiet. Now it was silence. Nothing was on. No creature was about. If there was a sound, he wouldn’t have heard it anyway.

He opened the drawer with one hand, reaching in for something in his other hand.

Poseidyn didn’t like the quiet. She said it made her feel like someone was missing. That always made Spice think of that empty room in his house he couldn’t go into. He refused to talk about that though. He’d only say that if someone were missing, they were probably better off not being here anyway. If they remained in the worlds everyone here had vague knowledge from. That was better. They wouldn’t have gone through any of this. He wouldn’t have to push them away.

He stood on a stool, tying a rope to some pipes above.

They never had to die here. Like everyone else. Like he should.

It just needed to be over.

It needed to end.

There were too many questions.

Too much pain.

Not enough chatter.

He pulled the rope under his neck, dropped his hands, and kicked the chair.

Just one more moment of pain.

Until someone grabbed his legs and lifted him.

“STOP DOING THIS TO ME STARLIGHT!” Another skeleton with a fluffy outfit cried out and gripped tightly on to him.

 _What am I doing?_ Spice pulled the rope off his neck and fell limp over the stranger’s shoulder. They yelped at the sudden weight and struggled to steady themselves. “I…” They seemed to hesitate for a moment, _probably realized I’m not the one they called out for._

“Was-” He coughed up some blood. “A stupid… idea…” Spice tried to laugh and just coughed more. Yet another unwanted guest in ‘his’ lab coming to his rescue.

“Don’t talk, please,” They instructed, carefully laying Spice down on the table. “you certainly made a dent…”

Spice just laid there without a care. There wasn’t a point to refuse care, just like there was no point to anything. He clearly wasn’t allowed to die. He was supposed to just suffer here in this empty world of dust and bones.

 _Fair enough._ He decided, staring up at the rope that hung from his ceiling. _I should have just enjoyed what I had when I had it I suppose. Then I’d be dead with them. But I couldn’t settle for that. This is the price I pay. Death would be a gift. I’m not worthy of freedom like that._

••• Continued in Feeding the Curious: A Taste of BitterSweet •••


End file.
